Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program

The Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP) provides comprehensive support for girls' education in Africa. A key component of the U.S. President's Africa Education Initiative (AEI), AGSP provides support in the form of scholarships, mentoring, parent and community awareness programs to promote and support girls' education, and HIV and AIDS awareness activities to prevent and mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS. Scholarships are intended to ensure access to educational opportunities, and reflect the specific needs within each country.

AGSP is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Implementing the program in 12 countries in West Africa, World Education is addressing the constraints to girls' participation, retention, and achievement at school. These constraints include financial and opportunity costs, socio-cultural factors such as early marriage, as well as the devastating impact of HIV and AIDS on girls and their families.

Since October 2004, over 90,000 scholarships have been distributed to girls who are economically disadvantaged, disabled, orphaned, and/or affected or infected by HIV/AIDS.

In 2007, AGSP was expanded to include boys for the fourth and fifth year of the program. Over 9,000 boys received scholarships during the 2007-2008 school year. These boys are in the same communities as the girl beneficiaries, and were selected using the same criteria.